I'm a mother, a wife, a small business owner, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action, and a proud, though relatively new, Oregonian.
I moved to Oregon nearly two years ago. I had spent the previous six years living overseas. I lived in Germany, Bosnia, and Turkey; and travelled extensively throughout Europe. America is generally admired and was praised by most people I met. Of course, there were criticisms, but those seemed to vary from person to person and country to country. The one thing I was constantly asked about was the overwhelming amount of gun violence in the world’s most “civilized” nation.
I often heard from locals about how frightening American gun violence was to them, and this included a country that was born out of a horrific civil war that introduced us to the term “ethnic cleansing”. I didn't think much of it until I moved back to the US and realized that we, as a nation, have become relatively numb to it, most likely due to its frequency.
I knew there must be some way to change our collective reaction - or lack thereof - to gun violence, but after giving it much thought I realized any change would have to start with a decrease in violent gun-related events in our country. That’s why I became a member of Moms Demand Action.
The Wear Orange Campaign was inspired by friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-oldChicago student killed by gunfire just days after dancing in the President's Inaugural Parade.They decided to honor her life by wearing orange — the color hunters wear in the woods to say "see me".
On June 2, what would have been Hadiya’s 20th birthday, hundreds of thousands ofAmericans will come together to #WearOrange and show their support for a future free from gunviolence.
This year, Moms Demand Action is running our first ever Wear Orange fundraisingcampaign to support our work to elevate the voices of survivors of gun violence, our BeSMARTcampaign to promote gun safety and prevent child gun deaths, and our ongoing efforts to trainmore gun sense activists.
Please contribute to support gun sense policies and invest in thewomen who will lead us to a future free from gun violence!